WHAT DO THE WINNERS

With regard to the three races that I did (with a win and a second place), I can say that those experiences while already so far – 1973 and 1974 – are vivid in my memories and all the times that I remember, a great thrill me axle together with a truly immense emotion.

Those two hits (including a second place I consider it a success) to Vs magnificent race, were among the finest companies in my sporting life, and I keep the “inside” as a legacy of a “season” of my life and that has enriched me greatly and made me grow so much, not only as a sport, but also as a man.

This sport (even more than the others) is gorgeous.

Precisely for this reason, it is a sport to recommend particularly to young people to learn early in the “school of life” that it teaches (helps to overcome suffering, laziness, teaches you how to improve yourself to get results when you work with them you will be deserved and fatigue, makes you respect someone who is stronger than you, but at the same time gives you awareness of your “value”, is a sport that emphasizes humility at the expense of “brazen defiance”, and then, last but not least privilege this sport is to get you closer to nature and to love and respect as, unfortunately, today many people do.

So a dear “bravo” to you Passatore that you support a sport that most of the other offers the advantages I mentioned earlier.

1974

Attilio Liberini

When I won the 100 Km of Passatore in 1974, I performed 35 years. It was my eighth race on the 100 km that disputavo. I won three times the “Torino-Saint Vincent” and the previous 100 km. I won only two centisti: the friend-rival Cattle and German Helmut Urbach.

Absent both the race Passatore, in 1974, won in 7h 34 ‘. Thanks to this victory was the only Italian to win both races from 1973 to 1987. Only two other centisti succeed in the enterprise: Helmut Urbach and the Scot Donald Ritchie. Assimilated more calmly dose of jam and I replaced the tea with the sweet white wine offered by the organization and so I came up to Marradi. Courses quiet to save breath, and leg Marradi few kilometers after the winner of the first edition, Baccaro, arrived a few meters from me. The road, however, was more enlightened and flat, changing gears and took the lead 4 minutes from Baccaro.

Finally, the car came to her assistance and also the dawn, and the friend Baccaro there was nothing more to do. I kept the advantage over 4 minutes and Faenza greeted me triumphantly. were 6.34. I was happy with the victory. Smoothly, I finished the race in about seven hours.

I am immensely grateful to all those people thronged along the way who have encouraged me and supported until the finish line.

That was a night that I will never forget.

1975

Who was Urbach

when the ditch called the sample

It must have been somewhere near Barberry, I do not know the exact location indicate accurately but that side of the mountain and the gutter, “the ditch”, that I still have much equity in the retina, so we were at the 60 km. and “panzer” Urbach, who had a great advantage over the latter, powerful marched on the tracks, ships and just like a steely deutsch panzer, who had the ribs the deutsche panzeressa, at some point the car seemed to have a prodigious something had infiltrated the gears.

The race, from time immemorial, and without resorting to Olympia, is one of the most pleasing to the eye exercises harmoniously because the viewer sees the harmony of the miracle that is called man, (or woman) in particular young and then comes precisely from say that that being has been created “in the image and likeness” of the Creator.

Urbach was good at running because he had to justify all that beauty, the harmony of all that is already something is to go faster than everyone else, that counts as well.

But the “buscolo” had infiltrated into gear and the car began to slow down prodigious, crackle and beauty and harmony disappeared as well and the large Urbach was no longer such, and when, staggering, swerved to the left, the knees folded, deflated, fell, or rather seemed to take refuge in the ditch and curl up in the fetal sac as the penalty of witnessing that catharsis was great, inexpressible.

But there was – what’s his name? … – His wife and a few words were dry, hard, sharp (tedesche!) and the last, and it was surprising detachment, whispered, as the song of nightingale and the miracle – oh yes, that really was a miracle – the small, poor man grimpò the ditch and was back on the road and shooting the beautiful, harmonious, amazing race.

E ‘was again the great Urbach.

A.D.

1976

Vito Melito

Dear Alteo,

to your call, I answer … I hope worthwhile for the project in the pipeline, and first-hand told you my feelings of these “old fighter” …

“Oh, how many times I have asked and continue to ask, Vito, why you run for 100 km?” … I say I do not know. “But are not you tired of running for 100 km …” I continued undaunted … I do not know … but … but … one thing, I know and I want to do as well … Run and run, if you can, a 100 km all those who, devoid of any delusions of stardom, they want to enhance the self, not according to the theory of the superman to others, how much self-aggrandizement, in the fullest sense of the body and spirit …

There are many, many moments and the moments in life that you do not want to ever forget, almost wanting them carve upon your heart and mind, but it is almost impossible to capture a fleeting flash as eternal happiness is certainly much easier to enjoy a ‘ life experience, that even if it lasts only 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 … up to 20 hours, but will upset and affect the best of their lives normal man with the true spirit of a man and genuine super.

1977

Vito Melito

The following lines are “more” than Vito wrote me, referring to his first victory. But he had to be certain that there would be an encore … or a set of four dry!

Dear Friends,

this is the spirit and the substance of 100 or supermaratona … you, simple man, helpless, often untrained to fight, defy everyone and everything, and even though at first glance may seem like a fair fight, you can win in the end, having permeate your soul of an unusual courage and your body of a cortex impervious to the cold, wind and rain …

And ‘This is the secret and the charm of a 100 km: there is a bit’ of everything: sport … psychology … sociology … joy and pain … sacrifices and sufferings … dramas large and small … is, in short, the humus of own lives, in our daily lives, each of us lives daily … try it …

I, the undersigned, thank God, imbued with this lifeline, despite the fact that suffering and pain … … wins and losses have affected their sacrifices with varying fortunes, but one thing, the inexorable and irreplaceable joy that you try to follow the last km of the long endless and infinite … the final straight leading to Faenza … sweet oasis of peace and rest after so much suffering … but above all a just, enduring and well-deserved award and recognition of the value and courage of a man finally super …

Hello, Vito

1978

Vito Melito

You did the 100 km. for three consecutive years and have always lowered the record from year to year, how do you explain this?

Now even the 100 km. has become a race for specialists: My faithfully reflects the stages of physical and psychological maturation improved from year to year. Exploiting more and more previous experience, you can better understand your body and face and the method of the race, with increasing conviction, even 100 km. may be a race like any other: just prepare well and believe in the work that you do.

This year you told on arrival that the third 100 km. You had already won last year, why?

Yes, last year, despite a difficult crisis, I managed to win past the opponent at the last km, of course, since you see that if 100 km. Elvino Gennari had set the world record on 6h20’35” I certainly would have done less and the third victory gives confirmation.

This year you left even to break the record of 100 km.?

Not really, I wanted to win for the third time and well, but after 50 km. of the race I had the belief that maintaining a regular rhythm I did the record. I pushed to the maximum of about 30 km. between the seventieth and penny here and I won the race and made the record of 6h12’55”.

With what kind of shoes you run?

A couple of brand shoes French, EB, fabulous lightness and softness, a little curiosity, having broken my few days before the race, I ran with a few borrowed from a student dell’Acquadela. This explains and gives value to the value and practicality of shoes.

Claudio Cava

Newsletter of Podista, July 1978

1979

Donald Ritchie Scottish …

I flew to Milan on the 24th and arrived at about 18.30. Unfortunately there were no trains to Florence until at 22.10 and so it took time eating ice cream, cake, spaghetti and pizza.

The train was very full but I found a place to sit. After four and a half hours I arrived in Florence. I found my hotel at three in the morning but I could not enter. Then I returned to the station and there waited for the dawn.

At 5.30 I went to walk around a bit ‘for the city and returned to the hotel at about 9.00.

I went to bed for a couple of hours, but I could not sleep, so I decided to go out for “reasons of culture”, visit the most important buildings and the exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci.

It was very hot and I was a little ‘nervous about the race. It took me a pleasant evening dining with Mr. Oneto and other athletes from France, Canada and Czechoslovakia …

The square was packed with runners of all shapes and species, even if the number of starters was limited to 3000. A band was playing and the atmosphere was festive. The start was unusual, not a rifle …

The award was delivered to me the next morning. It was a real party in the square. The enthusiasm was general and totally different from any other SIMILAR previous experience. It was certainly a memorable event, in all respects!

(From a publication signed by the athlete and interesting as a great athlete faces a tough test as well as the minute details)

1980

Even, Donald Ritchie

The “100 Passatore” is a very special race with many features. Mostly it is a great race, apart from the distance we have also to consider the tough tear off Florence and after the climb to Passo della Colla. Weather conditions also can create difficulties.

To consider also the strong participation that makes me say that never at any other time I have seen many participants in a ultrarunner, this creates a very special atmosphere to start from the Piazza della Signoria.

Then there is the support of the spectators along the route that is not recorded in any other SIMILAR race. Borgo S. Lorenzo is magnificent, with its narrow streets were blocked by crowds that moved just to let you pass, and later, when night fell I remember the support given by the orchestras in different countries and even crossed the moving support of the people.

At the end was a hero that was received in the great square of Faenza, a welcome unforgettable. Everyone is happy that any race is completed but not this, in the morning of Sunday, the awards ceremony is a happy and memorable occasion.

All this and much more make the “Passatore” a great experience; congratulate the organizers for having produced a race so beautiful and I am proud to have won multiple editions, and I hope that this will continue for generations to ultrarunners can enjoy the “magic” of “100 Passatore”.

1981

Italy won the World Cup three times but Vito Melito is at an altitude of four!

(It would have also won the “100 Washington” if they had not made the wrong path)

Vito Melito

Raffaele From Vine

(La Gazzetta dello Sport)

1982

Luciano Ceni

Indeed, “Him” – Luciano Ceni, because the self has not arrived and then, to keep the setting of the book, someone else has to say about the railroad and electricians, who was the real surprise of the tenth edition the “100 Passatore”.

A survey among journalists, and many with a long presence in the militia “Passatore”, then people from “eagle eye” in these things has not dreamed indicate Luciano either as first or as second or third, rather – for them – not even exist.

All the forecasts were for Donald Ritchie, alternatively Pope and Gennari.

How do you explain the fact? As it turns out Luciano Ceni? He explains Stefano Biondi on “Stadium”.

.”>He says: <>.

There are many things to explain: how can a runner (ie use less than half of a 100) and present to win, because the cold and the rain have stopped the “big” and not him .. and we could say many other similar questions.

Better tighten and say, in the manner of Monsieur de la Palisse, Luciano Ceni won because it came first.

And his name stands for ever, the beautiful ceramic plate that eternal, as at Olympia, the real champions.

A.D.

1983

Mauro Cilia

Gent.mo Alteo Mr. Dolcini

And ‘with great pleasure that answer your very welcome letter.

You ask me to remember the feelings I felt that now distant in May 1983. The premise that these feelings are still indelible in my mind.

I can tell you that from the sporting point of view, for me the victory was something unexpected and, therefore, doubly beautiful. But what has impressed me most was the warmth of the people, by the roadside, while not knowing, I sometimes ran alongside, urging.

And it was such a heat that people could send me, which allowed me, sometimes not to think to hard work and, therefore, to continue in the most peaceful and tranquil to the finish line.

Finally, remember the warm welcome in the square, which honestly does not erase my mind ever.

Hoping to have a copy of his written and to see her again, I greet you cordially.

Mauro Cilia

1984

Who is Fausto Coletti

seen by Ennio Macconi

Fausto Coletti, thirty-three workers of Terni and Gabriele Nembrini, 20 years old, resident in Italy but Incisa. The first and the last. Both, in different ways, have won this twelfth edition of the Hundred Kilometres of Passatore, this mad rush to walk from Florence to Faenza game Saturday afternoon at 16.30 in the Palazzo Vecchio and ended after twenty hours in Faenza, in square people.

Fausto Coletti, the first arrival of the 1240 survivors, compared to 2934 present at the start, beat all. It ‘was the fastest. At an average of nearly 15 miles an hour, to run the 101 km and 500 meters it took 6 hours, 52’44”. Gabriele Nembrini, the last one is able to arrive within the time limit. And ‘This was his victory. Two races in one. Competitive spirit and desire to succeed. The competition and the chance to win were a few. For everyone else, it was a great test, the desire to see how far he can go. The hundred kilometers of the Passatore is great for this. It ‘true, dramatic, joyful, unique.

1985

Fausto Coletti

e un rimborso spese che non supera le duecentomila lire.”>and an expense that does not exceed two hundred thousand pounds. From his forays into the Papal States the “Passator Cortese,” the robber pascoliana memory that is called the hundred kilometers through the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines from Florence to Faenza, had to get loot certainly richer.

F.N.

(Gazzetta dello Sport)

1986

Jean Marc Bellocq

Recalling that Gaston de Foix defunse nearby at the Battle of Ravenna

The approach is arditino, put side by side the young general – Gaston de Foix – the head of the French army fell, for the umpteenth time in Italy forsaken by saying that we had to chase the Spaniards (it was in 1512 or so there …) and then war, bomb, besiege, rape, starvation, and so on. Here put this side with Jean Marc Bellocq that does nothing of all the bad things that we have said, that did not have it with the Spaniards, “armed” but if anything (with the above and all other ) “on pie ‘fast’, here – in this sense, the approach can go.

To say, once again, that the Gauls are strong, and get out of the way that they, the grandeur, they have it exclusively and woe to the vanquished, to those who have fallen behind, a minute or ten hours.

Jean Marc is elegance beyond the Alps applied to tougher competition. He has the physique du rôle in the most accomplished. Correct height (center of gravity is not something to be taken lightly), the right weight, the right head, that is, the ringworm will, wanting more of the second and all the others.

Jean Marc runs with a cap, which, on the back, a white cloth is applied, such as the “Foreign Legion”, but – he – not a legioner, ie a mercenary came from somewhere. He, French, an official, even the commander en chef.

1987

Jean Marc Bellocq

I came to Italy last year just to compete in this race which I was told wonders, I won, but mostly I have been exalted. So this year I have not even considered the possibility of winning the French title, and got ready for the Passatore. Win it would give me more glory than any other 100 km. I brought with me and Monique Bernard Rossetti Fornari, second and fourth in the last edition, and I convinced him to come along Christian Roig, one of the best French centisti. Bernard has confirmed its second position, Monique, who is also my coach, has earned a podium finishes, while Christian finished fifth. All my compatriots were enthusiastic: if word spread after a few years the Passatore speak French … I have thirty years, have a degree in pharmacy and working in a pharmaceutical company that supplies of medicines all the hospitals of Paris. I live in La Celle Saint Cloud (remember the Edict of Saint Claud which inspired the Tomb to Pasture?), A village to the south-western outskirts of the French capital, and I compete for the AC Bally Noisy. I work out every day for a total of 200 miles a week; valgus 2:27 in the marathon. ‘ As you can see it is not transcendental what I do, and that is why I say that when a marathon runner from 2:15 ‘decides to devote himself to 100 km with seriousness and after verifying the ability to handle long distances make havoc.

1988

Norman Di Gennaro

The Chronicles, the rolls of gold, people, a sporting event only remember the winner.

Personally, I am convinced that the history of the sport is done by everyone, that is, by all those who identify themselves in that discipline.

Dear friend, for once give me the word, I asked 40 to 50 lines of memories and feelings, but it seem possible that we can summarize in so little space, the “pathos of 100,000 meters”?

Rule it out: it would be a framework sterile and meaningless.

My pen is not so erudite and light enough to be able to lavish the many, many feelings along the hairpin bends and up the slopes of quell’habitat wonderful.

Before departure, I was assailed by panic, fear of not succeeding.

Then … Ready … Via … 30 km … 40 km …, the muscles were the right carburetion, heart calmed down, orgasm disappeared and the place of the unpleasant sensations was taken by the optimism that had accompanied me during the approach phase the race itself.

Since then, barring unforeseen circumstances, I felt I had the victory in hand.

In fact, I never had physical problems, seven kilometers from the finish, I broke the plunge and went on to win in crescendo.

Of course, do not forget that wonderful audience from the friendly face and cheering.

To them I owe the result of all this business. But it was? To them the sentence!

John Paul II (and it amazes me and it bothers me to hear it call “Papa Woitila” or even – with a freedom rude, even “Woitilia”) has made many wondrous things, and the first, of course, is that of bringing a non-Italian Pope -him-on the throne of Peter, after 500 years of uninterrupted Italian style … and someone says that – after him – will pass another 500 before it has yet to occur …

But it is, and do not take account of the rest of the great and tumble politics that is upsetting part of the land, a man by the name of someone says impossible (and Polish …) registers, is in Florence, go to Fiesole, Borgo S. Lorenzo, Passo Glue, Marradi … without putting particular emphasis on (perhaps because the unpronounceable name helps this clever camouflage …) then gets in at the gates of Faenza occurs because great (great, great thing is to eternarsi winning a “100 Passatore”) and Polish, fellow of the Pope, “the man Woitila” – the task of titolasti the sports pages is so much easier – is in Piazza del Popolo.

The “true fact” was that the wall (the terrible, inhuman, indecent, lewd, indefinable thing) had collapsed not only for Germany and Berlin, but for many nations that tasted freedom and excitement of the opening of the wall was also passed Jamont Przemyslaw and so fast that he beat everyone, even to arrive at Faenza.

1991

Valmir Nuñes brasileiro

I started running at 15, at school, and immediately I felt led to this sport. My first race, 100 km was Uburaba, Minai Gerais, Brazil, in July of ’90, when I came first. Then I ran in Santander, Rio de Janeiro, still third. Then I had my greatest satisfaction to Florence – Faenza, when I won the world championship.

I was very impressed by the perfect organization of the race, which gives the relief printing, public participation, the patrons, the government. How different from my country, where the athletes are absolutely alone “to fight for a place in the sun.”

Take me, for instance, that I am alone, without a coach, with no one with whom to set up my preparation. As a rule, I run every day, running the country, on the hills, on the beach. I read a lot, books and newspapers, about the sport and I try to keep myself strong and healthy, eat healthy, do not drink and do not smoke. Sure you’re all right, then, to keep in shape physically and mentally.

I will not forget as long as I the “100 Passatore” for a fact more than all the others: the places that run through from Florence to Faenza. The landscape, the landscape, everything is so beautiful that you can hardly feel the fatigue in the muscles. I must tell you what helped me win the “100 Passatore” I felt alone, lost in a country where no one understood me and I understood none. In addition, I felt a bit ‘wrong in the Hotel prior to departure and then you will understand how I presented myself at the start. But as soon as the race started I told myself that I had to get first: it was the way to beat my illness and fear.

1992

Valmir Nuñes

in the year of Christopher Columbus

I did not want to come, I do not do it again, and this is how your Paganini … Then you told me that it was the 500th of Descobrimento the New World, that I had a moral duty to be there, because it would also come from the USA Vassili Triantos of fresh citizenship stars and stripes from the ancient Breton people who taught very many, and it was because he had won the “100 Passatore” in Washington and then I did not have the heart to do a disservice to what I I say be the “100 most beautiful in the world” …

And so here I am … and it would have been if he had not interfered common Christopher and who knows where I would be now without his discovery! I have not broken the record in ’91 even 20 minutes longer, which for me are many but believe me, however, win the “100 Passatore” is always a great thing.

Are already two beautiful ceramic plaques awarded to the winner and now that I did an encore I thought to equal the record of Vito Melito (which has 4) and it would be nice to be one more … We’ll see.

Meanwhile, a warm greeting to Florence, to Romagna, to all the world and also centisti all’Alteo who played my thoughts …